Thursday RTA meeting

Leaders from Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties along with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan agreed Tuesday to compromise language to preserve a plan for a regional transit tax to be placed on the November ballot.

The impasse was reached during a meeting at the Detroit Athletic Club by adding to the ballot language wording that changes the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan board’s voting structure. Voters will be asked to approve a format in which a simple majority will approve decisions, but there must be a yes vote from each of the four counties and the city of Detroit.

That satisfied Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel’s concern that had him blocking the board’s ballot language vote last week — something that created a critical problem because of the looming Aug. 16 deadline to get state certification for issues to get on the Nov. 8 ballot.

“Just that little language changes everything,” he told Crain’s on Tuesday evening. “Nobody can be marginalized. It protects all of us and forces us to come together to make regional decisions.”

He wanted a voting structure similar to the model used by the regional authority that oversees Detroit’s Cobo Center, and he got that under Tuesday’s deal.

Hackel also said the joint Macomb-Oakland concern that the RTA law’s mandate that 85 percent of what the transit tax raises in each county annually is spent in that county has been solved. The fix was achieved by adding language to the master plan that requires an annual review to ensure that the 85 percent spending threshold is met.

“We’re pleased that the regional leaders have reached agreement on a regional transit plan to place before voters in November and look forward to a successful vote at the special RTA board meeting Thursday morning,” RTA CEO Michael Ford said in a statement.

Duggan issued a statement, too: "We appreciate our partners agreeing to come together and move our region forward. This regional transit plan will bring not only independence and opportunity for people all over Southeast Michigan, but it will allow us to compete with metropolitan areas across the country for development and investment. This agreement also signifies that our region is starting to move beyond a half century of infighting that has served only to divide us and hold southeast Michigan back."

An Oakland County spokesman said Patterson and his chief deputy on the transit issue, Gerald Poisson, were not available Tuesday evening to comment. The county has made it clear, however, that its chief concerns about the value of service to remote areas of the county, the voting structure for funding issues and governance of how the regional transit tax revenue would be spent annually have been satisfied under the compromise reached Tuesday.

The RTA board is scheduled to meet Thursday. Details of how the Oakland-Macomb concerns are to be drafted into formal language for a vote were not known. It wasn't immediately clear what was done to satisfy Patterson's complaint that the RTA master plan failed to provide return on investment for those living in remote portions of his county.

“I am satisfied that the accord we reached today not only offers something for our 40 communities and over half a million residents previously left out of the transit plan, but also incorporates the necessary protections we were seeking for Oakland County taxpayers,” Patterson said in a statement. “I’m grateful to my regional counterparts who joined me in moving forward."

The deal comes after the RTA master plan was approved by the board, but the ballot language rejected, in a dramatic meeting last week. Macomb County approved the plan, but jointed Oakland in voting against the ballot wording, effectively scuttling the entire thing until a compromise could be worked out.

The no vote prompted a storm of criticism, mostly focused on Patterson and Hackel, who also found supporters in critics of the RTA concept.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, in a statement, said the master plan still has “minor concerns” that must be fixed, but in general he supports the initiative.

“The improved public transportation system that the RTA is proposing will build upon the progress that Detroit and Wayne County have made in the past few years, progress that has strengthening our region,” he said. “With this plan everybody wins. I remain committed to work with regional leaders over the next several days to ensure we get this important issue across the finish line and to the ballot for a November vote. “

If approved by voters, with state and federal matching funds, the tax is predicted by the RTA to generate $4.7 billion over 20 years to pay for bus rapid transit lines on the Woodward, Michigan and Gratiot avenue corridors as well as Washtenaw Avenue between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti; create a long-discussed commuter rail service between Detroit and Ann Arbor; and cover the transit service’s annual operating costs.

It also would eventually cover Detroit’s M-1 Rail streetcar line.

The RTA has conducted a series of public opinion-gathering and comment meetings since the May 31 plan unveiling.

The Nov. 8 ballot issue as first introduced would ask voters in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties to approve a 1.2-mill property tax increase to fund the RTA's master plan of bus rapid transit and commuter rail. The RTA has said the tax would cost the owner of an average home in the region $95 annually in additional taxes — a figure that would be higher or lower depending on the home's taxable value.

If voters approve the transit tax, all property owners in the four counties would pay it — there would be no opt-out provision, unlike the suburban bus tax. The RTA millage would be atop the other transit taxes already in place in the Ann Arbor area and Detroit suburbs.

Under a BRT system, buses operate much like a rail line, with specialized train-like wheeled vehicles with dedicated lanes, priority traffic signaling and higher speeds.

The RTA tax would be the local money required to access matching federal funding to build and operate bus rapid transit and train systems. The RTA would have to apply for such funding from the federal government, and the process is vigorously competitive and often lengthy.

Total cost of the RTA's master plan, with federal and state funding the authority plans to eventually seek, is estimated at $4.6 billion through 2036.

The millage is also expected to fund new traditional Detroit Department of Transportation and SMART bus service, a universal fare card for the region, and an express service across the region from the airport. The tax also could pay for other transit infrastructure capital costs.

The RTA was created in 2012, after 40 years of failed attempts to do so, with the intent of creating a regional transportation plan and network for the metro area. It is responsible for coordinating mass transit operations and funding across the four counties, including cooperation among established transit agencies such as the DDOT and SMART bus systems.